


midnight to south of here

by Sierra



Category: Free!
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Yakuza, Breathplay, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Minor Violence, Porn With Plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-08-12 23:19:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7953064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sierra/pseuds/Sierra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[yakuza au]</p><p>“Yeah, that’s me. Bleeding all the time. Everywhere." Sousuke huffs out a laugh and scrubs his sleeve over his nose. Blood comes away from it, thick and heavy-smelling. It’s in his mouth, too. The tang is comforting in the most fucked up way now that Haruka kicking his ass on the regular has become a staple part of his life. “Should check the orifices you <i>can’t</i> see. Fuck, where’s the nearest blood donation place? I’ll load ‘em up.”</p><p>“Stop talking.” Setting down the umbrella, Makoto starts unwrapping his scarf. His eyes are soft and concerned, but Sousuke’s focus is zeroed in on Makoto’s hands as they start wiping away the blood on his nose and cheeks, as gently as they manipulated his shoulder both times before.</p><p><i>Twice</i>, Sousuke thinks, gazing blearily at Makoto. <i>I’ve met him twice. Why the fuck should he care? Shit, why would anyone.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. life for rent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ishka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishka/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a problem. a soumako problem.
> 
> iska wanted them fight-fucking. ty for enabling my severe and pervasive sm needs, bb.
> 
> disclaimer: i know nothing about yakuza other than what i found in my research (for the sake of porn). sousuke is dojin-kai based in fukuoka, and rin and haruka are yamaguchi-gumi based in kobe, osaka. obviously i do not condone any of the characters' actions or...careers.

* * *

 

Mikoshiba’s favourite game is to let Sousuke guess the client by some ambiguous codename. He flips open his phone to double-check the message from Mikoshiba. Tonight it’s _blue eyes._

Sometimes there’s a clue in the client’s clothing or some nod to their profession, a hint in the scent of their cologne. By now Sousuke has an eye for picking his clients from a crowd no matter how needlessly difficult Mikoshiba feels like making it.

If he works his way to Mikoshiba’s position in a few years and overthrows him, the games will be more physical in nature. He’s imagined what Mikoshiba might look like minus a finger or two for a couple of months now, how he would feel about a prolonged game of Russian roulette with each of the six chambers empty.

The thought brings a wry smile to his lips as he waits on the steps of Kushida shrine. The few people trickling in and out every so often pay him no mind; January is outside peak tourist season. It’s so close to dusk that eye colour won’t make a difference in a few minutes. Relying on instinct for the type of people who buy narcotics is all he has tonight.

At five past six, the light from within the shrine does nothing to illuminate the figure of the person who appears out of the gathering dark.

The symbol tattooed to the curve of the man’s neck is as familiar as the face shadowed by a hooded sweatshirt. Sousuke hesitates for a heartbeat before hefting himself up with a hand over the stair railing, his body tense.

“Nanase.”

“Yamazaki,” Haruka replies, tilting his head left. “Let’s go somewhere else. It’s too bright here.”

Sousuke scowls but he follows Haruka to the back of the shrine without a word, keeping a distance between them. Every hair on the back of his neck stands on end in warning.

Liaising with someone he doesn’t like is one thing and liaising with a rival clan is quite another. Haruka is both.

He knows Haruka more by reputation than anything else, but they’ve been aware of each other as long as Sousuke can remember, and Haruka poses a threat enough for him to want to shut down the deal already. No amount of fucking money is worth the risk. He might as well roll over belly-up right now and offer Haruka his throat in submission. It’d be a hell of lot easier than the conversation he’ll be having with Mikoshiba if he refuses to go ahead with the deal, so when Haruka tugs back the hood and gazes at him expectantly, Sousuke glares, lingering close to the dimly-lit area. As long as he can see, he stands a chance.

“Do you have any idea how fucking dangerous this is?” he asks, voice low. “We could both be _killed_ for this.”

“I’m not here for myself,” Haruka says coldly. “Rin sent me.”

Sousuke’s lips curl into a sneer. “I thought the stick was lodged too far up your ass for you to take orders from someone, especially Matsuoka.”

Nothing in Haruka’s expression changes. “Do you have it?”

Digging through his coat pocket, Sousuke holds the baggie up between two fingers. Haruka’s lips purse. “Yeah. Doesn’t mean I’m going to give it to you, though.”

“I’ve got the money,” Haruka says through the bite of teeth. “This has nothing to do with you. Hurry up so both of us can leave and you can forget you had to dirty your hands.”

“I thought Yamaguchi-gumi’s number one rule was _no drugs_? Especially fucking heroin. Matusoka must be a real mess, huh? Guess his expiry date is gonna be sooner than we expected. You might get a promotion a lot earlier than you thought, Nanase.”

Haruka doesn’t give him more than a clench of a fist. “I’m not asking you again.”

Sousuke knows not to tangle with the members of other clans. Mikoshiba’s been hammering it into his head since the day he joined Dojin-kai, and probably sending him messages subliminally by rigging television stations and re-arranging the magnet letters on the front of his fridge well before he was even recruited. It’s instinctual to keep away from certain cities, not to walk down a street unarmed or alone in another clan’s territory. But Haruka barely reaches his chin, all sinew and catlike grace and bottomless blue eyes. There’s no strength to his movements, no imminent threat in the quiet way he talks. Sousuke is wary of him but seeing him in person for the first time in years has soothed his nerves enough to make him bold.

The rumours might be true. Maybe Haruka is more lethal than his Colt .45, but there’s no chance in hell that he’s faster. Sousuke lets his hand drop to his thigh to brush the holster under his jeans.

“If you want it,” Sousuke says, and his tone drops to a growl, “come take it.”

* * *

Haruka proves to be more proficient in hand-to-hand than Sousuke anticipated, with a gift for disarming guns.

The rumours, Sousuke concludes, are true. He holds his tongue the next time he meets with Mikoshiba, already conjuring mental images of the voodoo dolls he’s going to buy online and have customised for his personal use. Momo cheerfully mentioned it once after discovering National Geographic, and added that they’re always delivered in a discreetly wrapped plain box like any sex toy. Sousuke doesn’t need any more questions from his landlord after the last time Momo used his address as a proxy, but the information is useful.

In the end, Sousuke kept his life and the cash in exchange for the heroin and the scraps of his pride, and Haruka slunk back into the night.

The dislocated right shoulder was an unexpected bonus. It takes three agonising days—of trying to pull his clothes on one-handed, intense frustration at being unable to jerk off, and being woken by the searing pain of rolling onto his shoulder—for Sousuke to book an appointment with the only local physiotherapist Mikoshiba will use for his glute issues.

The physio’s name is Tachibana but he insists on Makoto with a radiant smile that makes Sousuke pat his jean pocket for his sunglasses, and he comes up empty before he realises they’re still in the car. He tries to smile back but it manifests as the same twisted grimace he’s been wearing since Haruka stripped him of his gun and bent his arm to an angle Sousuke definitely missed during geometry class.

“Take off your jacket,” Makoto instructs when Sousuke is seated on the rubber-cushioned table, glancing around at the anatomy posters on every square inch of wall surface.

“Do you have any idea how long it took me to get it _on_?”

“No,” Makoto answers, reaching for a pair of latex gloves. “How could I?”

“That was rhetorical,” Sousuke mumbles, slipping his uninjured arm free. “Half an hour.”

“That seems excessive,” Makoto says sympathetically, “but it is cold, so I can see why you would…”

“Yeah, yeah.” Gritting his teeth, Sousuke gives himself a moment to prepare before he gingerly removes the jacket. He has to bite down a curse whenever the fabric so much as brushes the swollen joint of his shoulder, and only when it comes free does he let himself breathe again. “Ready.”

Makoto blinks, and smiles sheepishly. He places a hand on Sousuke’s back, so close to the spot where pain radiates through him that Sousuke can’t discern the heat of it from the touch. “Your shirt, too.”

“If I ever make another appointment,” Sousuke mutters as he tugs the hem of his shirt up, “remind me to just show up  _naked_.”

* * *

It’s Friday night when Mikoshiba corners him in a karaoke bar, sliding the door shut with a clash. Clumsily, Sousuke fumbles with the microphone and Kisumi, equally inebriated but delighted at the sight of company, reaches for Mikoshiba’s hand and drags him down into the booth.

“You’re Sousuke’s boss, right?” Kisumi says, slurring his way around the letters of Sousuke’s name. “Seijuro? You get to tell him what to do? Holy fuck, _teach m_ e.”

Mikoshiba nods, motioning for Sousuke with a crook of his finger. “Absolutely right. I can let you in on some trade tips.”

“Want some?” Kisumi asks, pulling a tray of shots over. “Sousuke’s no fun. He just wants beer and tequila straight out of the bottle. He was just about to sing, too,” he adds, sighing. “You sort of ruined it!”

“Sorry,” Mikoshiba responds, sounding nothing of the sort. He accepts the shot glass Kisumi offers him, sniffing it as if his taste is any more expensive than Sousuke’s.

Mikoshiba smokes the cheapest American cigars he could import at the lowest possible cost, and Sousuke’s car still reeks of them from their last impromptu meeting, pulled over on the roadside in the red-light district. “But it was important for me to see Sousuke tonight.”

“It’s my day off,” Sousuke grumbles, swaying his way back to the booth.

He drops down beside Kisumi and, just to spite him, grabs the half-empty bottle of tequila, throwing it back in one mouthful. He wipes his mouth with the back of his arm and glowers at Mikoshiba, emboldened by the alcohol and indignant at being disturbed on the one day of the week he gets any reprieve from Mikoshiba’s bullshit. He still sees Haruka’s face in every shadow, and his shoulder still aches from where Makoto wrenched it back into place with many profuse apologies two days ago. The only thing that made him feel better was that while Makoto was in the other room washing his hands and finding a balm for the swelling, Sousuke had rifled through Makoto’s drawer to find it well-stocked with cola-flavoured lollipops, which Makoto then offered to him at the end of the appointment. Sousuke, with a pocketful of them already, had accepted it and torn the wrapper off to shove it into his mouth, warding off the sulk accompanying the pain of de-dislocating.

Seeing Mikoshiba’s face is making him relive the worst of it.

“What the fuck do you want?” he asks. “If it’s got anything to do with work, you can goddamn well show yourself out. Or shove it up your ass. I’m not interested.”

“It’s work-related,” Mikoshiba says with the kind of broad grin that makes Sousuke tap the iPad menu for another round of tequila. “And you’re going to want to hear me out, Sousuke. It’s about blue-eyes.”

“Fuck,” Sousuke breathes, feeling himself seething. “Kisumi, get out for a minute.”

* * *

Haruka shows up on time again.

Sousuke is at the end of the dock, waiting, when he hears footsteps that come to a stop a few metres behind him. He bristles and turns to find Haruka with a hand outstretched, expression blank as if he doesn’t remember maiming Sousuke a fortnight ago.

 _Whoever did this to you knew what he was doing_ , Makoto had remarked as fingers whispered across his deltoid. _I wouldn’t go to that part of town again, if I were you. Okay?_

Sousuke would have been sceptical of a story about someone of his size getting robbed, too. But that’s far less embarrassing than admitting to a physiotherapist that he had his ass handed to him by a five-foot-nine member of Yamaguchi-gumi after provoking him into it knowingly. He pushes thoughts of gentle hands and a gentler smile out of his head, focusing on Haruka and the slap of water against the pillars beneath their feet, the heavy salt in the air.

The dock limits Haruka’s movement, and Sousuke knows that’s where he erred last time. He didn’t anticipate how fast or agile Haruka would be, given room to move. Tonight there’s nowhere for Haruka to go except over the side, into the water, and Sousuke wonders if he’d be washed in by the tide or if a cement block might do the trick in keeping him at the bottom of the ocean until fish nibble away at his unseeing eyes and cold flesh.

“You’re a long way from home,” Sousuke says by way of greeting. “Matsuoka got you flying out here twice a month for his smack habit? You should have stayed on your side of Japan, Nanase.”

Haruka’s hand slides back into a pocket. “How’s your shoulder?” he murmurs. “I should have broken it.”

Sousuke bares his teeth in a snarl, the baggie tucked inside his jacket forgotten. “I’d like to see you fucking try.”

* * *

“Whoa,” Kisumi says with awe, thumb pushing Sousuke’s eyebrow up. “That looks terrible. Your busted lip’s gonna need stitching, too.”

“No kidding,” Sousuke grouses, jerking away when Kisumi tries to get a closer look. “Stop it. Fuck, I think it’s really broken this time.”

He inclines his head toward his right shoulder to gaze at it with a frown. It’s not dislocated—he’s been able to jerk off twice since it happened—but there’s something deeply wrong, making it so painful he can’t even change his clothes. He’s been wearing the same shirt for forty-eight hours and it’s starting to show, because Kisumi wrinkles his nose and recoils.

“You have some bad luck, huh?” he muses. “You’ve been attacked twice in three weeks. Do you attract trouble or do you just have some seriously bad karma coming for your ass?”

Kisumi hands Sousuke a bag of frozen peas that he presses to his black eye, wincing. The relief is minor but it’s better than nothing. He won’t take pain medication—he doesn’t like _any_ drugs, and the irony would be hilarious if his injuries as a result of drug-dealing weren’t quite so real. He lets a long sigh loose, catching himself before he falls back on the couch out of habit.

“Don’t come near me if it’s so bad,” he says under his breath. “Save yourself the karma by association. I didn’t ask you to come over here.”

Kisumi clicks his tongue and slaps him on the knee. “What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t figure out why you were avoiding my calls?”

“It was 3AM, you piece of shit.”

“Love you, too,” Kisumi says. “But really, you’re pretty reliable even if it is the middle of the night, so of course I got worried. Don’t hold it against me or you can clean the blood off your own face next time.”

Allowing Kisumi to lean in again to inspect the cuts on his lip and chin, Sousuke stifles a groan of frustration. He has to let Kisumi have this much. It’s not as though he has any other friends, and Mikoshiba is about as helpful as a persistent case of chlamydia.

“Whatever. Forget the stitches,” he says. “My shoulder is the only thing that needs fixing long-term.”

“Yeah,” Kisumi agrees, taking the bag from him and reaching for a damp washcloth. “Damn, you’re so fucked up. Ever think about hiring a bodyguard?” He laughs at his own joke and winks at Sousuke’s glare. “I’m just saying! You’d think you were a target or something. Guess it’s just the bad karma after all, huh? I told you to stop ignoring dogs that want your attention. And babies. Why is it always babies who like _you_? Not to mention their _mothers_ —”

“Kis.”

“Hm?”

“Shut up.”

* * *

In Makoto’s waiting room, Sousuke stares at the side of the aquarium absently until the clownfish become a blur. He’s consumed with thoughts of drowning himself in alcohol after his shoulder is taken care of, and he barely notices when the client before him is ushered out the door with a bright smile and well wishes. It’s not until the door slams that he breaks out of his reverie and Makoto’s eyes make contact with his. Makoto’s hand flies to his mouth, and it’s understandable.

Sousuke looks like something a cat dragged in, ate in a hurry, and regurgitated along with a hairball and last week’s fish special. He feels just as rough. His black eye has been drawing unwanted attention all morning from strangers passing by, and his lip is still a bit swollen from the deep gash between it and his chin. His hair hasn’t been washed in days and it’s unkempt, and the last time he had the misfortune to walk past a mirror, his skin was pallid. His teeth are clean, at least, and his breath should be minty fresh according to the Listerine. Sousuke doesn’t know why it’s vital that his mouth is presentable for a physio appointment but Haruka might have knocked some sense out of his head, too.

His gaze drops to the floor after a moment. Makoto must realise he’s staring because he clears his throat nervously.

“Please, come in,” he says, as Sousuke is already up and halfway to the consultation room. Sousuke fixes himself on the table again and fishes a lollipop out of his pocket, immediately pushing it into his mouth to give himself something else to focus on, all too aware of how childish he’s acting.

“You like those?” Makoto ventures as he closes the door. “I—um, I do, too.”

“Great,” Sousuke mumbles. “Look, I don’t need the small talk and I don’t want you to ask questions. Give me your professional opinion and leave the rest.”

“What happened?” Makoto asks. When he receives silence in return, he tries again. “What’s wrong with you? Can I help?”

Sousuke wants to laugh. _What isn’t wrong with me?_ he wants to ask. _Good fucking question. Let me figure out where to start first. How about the part where I want you to tear me apart with your hands instead of fixing whatever the hell Nanase Haruka has done to me._

He just sucks harder on the lollipop instead. “Shoulder again. Probably.”

“Probably?” Makoto sighs. “Okay. You know what to do—shirt.”

“That’s gonna be a problem,” Sousuke mutters. “You’ll have to…to…”

“To?”

“Cut me out. I can’t get it up.”

In the middle of opening a drawer, Makoto goes rigid. “W-what?”

Sousuke sees the back of his ears burning bright red, then realises _why_ and nearly chokes on the lollipop.

“No, not—fuck, not like that. My arm. I can’t lift it—up.”

“Oh. Okay,” Makoto mumbles, finding a pair of scissors. “Yeah, sure, I can cut you out of it. That’s fine, that’s…”

“Just do it,” Sousuke snaps, crunching on the lollipop. It shatters in his mouth, and he swallows the pieces and works the stem between his teeth in annoyance. “I’ve got a spare shirt in the car.”

Within ten seconds, Makoto slices the shirt from collar to hem, and he helps Sousuke peel it off on the side of his tender shoulder. He takes his time examining Sousuke from front to back, methodical and careful in the way his fingers again find the edges of his shoulderblades and test the movement of his collarbone. All of it hurts, and Sousuke bites the inside of his cheek to prevent himself growling at Makoto or worse.

He spits the lollipop stem out and glances at Makoto. “So?”

“I don’t know,” Makoto answers as he applies pressure to the spot just below Sousuke’s deltoid. “Does that hurt?”

“Fuck yes,” Sousuke hisses, fighting not to squirm away. “Don’t do that again.”

Nodding, Makoto slides the gloves off and sits himself beside Sousuke. “I can’t tell what it is just by poking and prodding. Your dislocation was easy to see and easy to fix, even though you really should have gone to a hospital for that…” His eyebrow furrows. “Anyway, you’ll need an x-ray if you want to pursue if any further. It could be something as simple as a stress fracture in your clavicle or something more serious like a broken scapula but there’s no way to tell for sure. I can write you a referral for a—”

“No,” Sousuke interjects, clasping his shoulder lightly, protectively. “No doctors, no hospitals. It hurts but it’s not as bad as before so it should heal on its own, yeah?”

“Theoretically,” Makoto says with an uneasy glance. “ _If_ it’s a stress fracture. I’d really recommend investigating it.”

“Not gonna happen.”

Makoto’s eyes search his, and Sousuke suddenly longs for the intensity of the pain distracting him. Something in Makoto’s face gives him an undercurrent of irrationality, of quiet fear and quieter yearning for those unassuming hands and the relief brought on the last time he sat here, in this room, with Makoto.

“Alright,” Makoto agrees. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is what I want,” Sousuke mutters, standing. “Believe me.”

* * *

The third time he meets Haruka goes about as smoothly as the one before it.

His shoulder stays intact—and just as well, because it still hurts to _fuck_ —but the way Haruka laid into him left a patchwork of bruises over his neck and arms, and probably his thigh where Haruka’s steel-capped boot made contact. Sousuke managed to get a few hits of his own in, though, and that’s the only thing that makes it worthwhile as he limps his way down the street in the pouring fucking rain.

He stumbles across an alleyway and makes it far enough to collapse against a graffiti-covered wall right beside a dumpster. He can’t help but chuckle as his head tips back to gaze at the sky overhead. The city is so polluted that he can’t see any stars, and that’s fine by him. His head is still spinning enough to create a fireworks show of its own.

Turning his palms up, he squints against the rain to find streaks of blood over them. The stroke of satisfaction is worth the last two times Haruka busted his shoulder, and Sousuke wonders what kind of injuries he actually managed to cause. The fight was too fast, too brutal for him to stop and take stock of the situation, much less come up with an effective method of attack or think of a way to immobilise Haruka. His lungs won’t be the same after today but he’s a fucking thug, not an athlete.

He shouldn’t be running for his life every time he closes a drug deal. He should be using his head, the brains Mikoshiba is always barking at him over. _You have the mind for the top job, Sousuke. You just don’t have the discipline or the common fucking sense, y’know?_

Sousuke chuckles again, closing his eyes. The day he ousts Mikoshiba and takes the title of faction leader is going to be so fucking worth it if he survives the next two pre-arranged deals with Haruka. Then it’s over, and he can focus on what he knows how to do and climb the ranks of yakuza until he’s directly under command of the kumicho.

“Sousuke?”

His eyes fly open. Makoto, shoulders hunched against the rain, is lingering by the corner of the alleyway, a mangled umbrella in one hand. “Are you okay?”

“Tachibana?” Sousuke murmurs, raising an eyebrow. “How the hell did you…?”

There are two of Makoto as he approaches and crouches down next to Sousuke. “You’re bleeding,” he says in a tone that does little to conceal how horrified he is. “Everywhere.”

“Yeah, that’s me. Bleeding all the time. Everywhere." Sousuke huffs out a laugh and scrubs his sleeve over his nose. Blood comes away from it, thick and heavy-smelling. It’s in his mouth, too. The tang is comforting in the most fucked up way now that Haruka kicking his ass on the regular has become a staple part of his life. “Should check the orifices you _can’t_ see. Fuck, where’s the nearest blood donation place? I’ll load ‘em up.”

“Stop talking.” Setting down the umbrella, Makoto starts unwrapping his scarf. His eyes are soft and concerned, but Sousuke’s focus is zeroed in on Makoto’s hands as they start wiping away the blood on his nose and cheeks, as gently as they manipulated his shoulder both times before.

 _Twice_ , Sousuke thinks, gazing blearily at Makoto. _I’ve met him twice. Why the fuck should he care? Shit, why would anyone._

“You don’t have to do that,” he mutters. “It’ll stop on its own.”

“You’re just going to make it worse. Here,” Makoto instructs, and Sousuke takes over holding the scrunched-up scarf to his nose. He can feel rivulets of blood escaping from a cut somewhere on his cheek and jaw, and he exhales slowly. The dizziness doesn’t fade, but Makoto’s face is clearer now and close to his own.

Sousuke recognises the scent of Makoto’s cologne. It’s black cedarwood, one he’s familiar with. It reminds him of when Mikoshiba was out of town on business, and he was tasked with babysitting Momo. With his brother’s credit card and a horde of girls to impress, Momo had dragged Sousuke on a long and monotonous shopping trip, and Sousuke had returned home reeking of a hundred different scents after acting as Momo’s personal cologne mannequin. It was the single longest weekend of Sousuke’s life next to his sister’s wedding celebrations, most of which he can’t recall due to potentially lethal blood-alcohol levels and Kisumi alternating between cooing wedding vows in his ear all night and crying intermittently about the flower arrangements.

His eyes slip closed again. He takes in a slow breath, immersing himself in the way Makoto smells for a moment to regroup himself.

“What are you doing in this part of town?” he asks when it dawns on him how much Makoto doesn’t fit into their surroundings. “It’s rough down here, you shouldn’t be— _shit_ , not so hard!”

Makoto eases off the pressure where he’s stemming the bleeding from Sousuke’s cheek, smiling. “Sorry.”

“You don’t look sorry.”

“You’re right,” Makoto says, and his smile might be playful, but Sousuke’s vision still has black spots in it. “I’m not.”

Scoffing, Sousuke draws the scarf away to scrutinise it. It’s cashmere and soaked through with blood now, so he shrugs and swipes at one of the cuts on his neck.

Makoto’s hair is damp from the rain when Sousuke reaches to touch it, and Makoto stills, eyebrows raised. “How long have you been here, anyway?”

“A few minutes before you,” Sousuke says, raking his fingers through the wet strands before his hand falls back to his lap. Makoto goes quiet, lips pressed together as he uses some of the raindrops to rub away the smears of blood from Sousuke’s jaw with a thumb.

“Green,” Sousuke says, apropos of nothing.

Makoto blinks at him, water clinging to his lashes. “What is?”

His eyelids are heavy, and he tries to concentrate on Makoto kneeling over him, the warm hand squeezing his shoulder in concern. “Sousuke?”

“Green-eyes,” he murmurs as the world narrows to a pinpoint made up of Makoto’s eyes as they widen. Black lurks at the edge of his vision, and he curls a smirk before it sweeps in to claim his consciousness. “That’s what he’d call you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://sierrasuke.tumblr.com/) ◇ [twitter](https://twitter.com/sierrasuke)
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> (Note: now multichapter of unknown length. Hang in there.)


	2. coma white

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You comparing me to an animal?”
> 
> “I found you like one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it got a lot longer than two parts. sorry. 
> 
> thanks for all the feedback on the last chapter! 
> 
>  [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBFwXoyjU2E)

* * *

 

Sousuke is the first to run from the fight.

Haruka has no choice but to let him go. The wind has been knocked out of him by a lucky but sloppy roundhouse kick, and he crumples to his knees, hands clenched on the road’s wet asphalt as he tries to regain his breath. His lungs won’t co-operate, bested by the weight behind Sousuke’s kick, and there’s blood welling at a cut on his lip. He raises his head in time to see the direction Sousuke takes at the end of the street. The spiralling traces of blood he leaves on the pavement would have clued Haruka in regardless.

At a distance he can tell Sousuke is wounded, making every step a struggle. When he disappears, Haruka drops his head again and pulls in a few much-needed breaths. He has what he needs. That’s all he should care about.

And yet it’s the only time Sousuke has landed a blow on him.

He skims a hand over his side past the curve of his ribs. The ensuing bolt of pain makes him wince. A cracked rib, then. Haruka would expect it from someone with Sousuke’s strength but when it comes down to it, that’s Sousuke’s entire arsenal. He’s too broad to manoeuvre, too slow to keep up with Haruka, and his body would be heavy and cumbersome in a match against someone who’s leaner, faster, more intuitive.

Haruka knows his own weaknesses. He’s aware of what he needs to make up for. Sousuke obviously hasn’t had to fight for his life before—his movements are rough and powerful but undisciplined and ineffective in close range combat where Haruka excels. But tonight he took a misstep and forgot to protect his flank. It was a split-second, a blink of an eye, but it was long enough for Sousuke—who’s become intimately acquainted with the way he fights—to close in on the opportunity, weight sinking back before he stabilised, took aim, and swung a leg high and true to the mark.

The crunching sound of the impact is still ringing in Haruka’s ears. He pushes himself to his feet with an active effort to smother the urge to find somewhere nearby he can lie down and wait out the ache in his ribs. The rain is picking up again, stinging his eyes and his wind-burned lips.

Haruka still hasn’t figured out what Sousuke’s angle is, or why he makes what should be a simple transaction so needlessly painful for himself. It’s drug dealing basics: inspect the product, swap the cash, leave. But Haruka doesn’t care enough to examine it beyond a surface level.

He finds refuge under the awning of a restaurant and out of the rain, gaze intent on the route Sousuke took.

His pocket vibrates. He takes his phone out, cradling it between his ear and shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Haru?” Rin questions, more genuinely curious than surprised. “You weren’t supposed to answer.” His tone drops to a teasing undertone, and Haruka can picture him lying supine on the bed, phone cord coiled around a finger. “I was gonna leave voicemail you could jerk off to later. You should have been on a plane by now.”

“Missed it, I guess.” Haruka rolls his eyes, knowing the effect is lost. “I got held up.”

“You better get _un_ -held up. I need you back here by tomorrow afternoon latest. Nagisa’s last client is at two, and then we’re meeting at my place. Don’t be late.”

“I’m never late.”

Rin snorts. “Except when you are.”

Haruka glances inside the restaurant where the movement of a waiter shaking out a tablecloth catches his eye. “Rin. I’m telling you, this is more trouble than it’s worth.”

Rin heaves a sigh. “Can we talk about this when you get back, Haru? Anyway, Gou’s here. Gotta go.”

“Yeah,” Haruka says with a long exhale. “It can wait.”

Rin hangs up before Haruka finishes, and the words die on his tongue. He frowns, snaps his phone shut and stays like that for a minute, looking out over the street.

The rain is spitting lightly in the fluorescent light overhead. The glare makes him want to close his eyes. Instead, he turns his back to it and makes a call to the airport to book himself another plane ticket to Kobe only to be told there are no more flights tonight. The next morning is the soonest on offer, so he accepts it and upgrades his seat to premium economy. He’s here at Rin’s behest, so it goes on Rin’s credit card.

He could sleep here if he had to, curled on the corner until daybreak. But he’s still restless with sleep the last thing on his mind, and the urge to track Sousuke down is pulling at him, an irresistible tug.

An eye for an eye is Rin’s favourite philosophy. After so long in Rin’s company (and sharing his bed), it’s little wonder his tendencies have rubbed off on Haruka.

Before he can start giving it any real consideration, Haruka follows Sousuke’s course. His eyes are sharp enough in the limited light to pick up the faint trail of blood he noticed earlier. A few spatters here and there would remain undetected by most people, but for Haruka it’s like a clear beacon pointing the way to Sousuke.

It takes him half a kilometre down the longest stretch of road in central Fukuoka. The spaces between drops of blood shorten until he finds the source, collapsed halfway down an alleyway. A man is kneeling beside him, the set of his shoulders tense.

Silently, Haruka approaches to get a better look.

Sousuke’s eyes are shut, head lolled to the side. For all intents and purposes, he looks dead. Haruka would prefer it that way.

The man calls Sousuke’s name a few times, his tone verging on panic as he slides a hand under Sousuke’s chin and draws his face up.

Content to let it play out however it needs to, Haruka nods to himself and starts to step away but something in the man’s voice is impossible to ignore, even for him.

It’s the kind of concern reserved for Gou, the kind Rin barely turns in his direction unless he wants something, like Haruka traipsing halfway across Japan and putting his life at risk for a few hundred grams of heroin.

“Stop shouting,” Haruka says, raising his voice to be heard over the rain. The man jerks, looking over his shoulder with a startled expression. “He’s not dead. Unconscious.”

“I know that! But just a minute ago he was—he was awake, he was talking—”

“Blood loss,” Haruka murmurs, laying a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Calm down. You’re no help to anyone if you’re hysterical.”

The man nods and draws in a slow breath, recomposing himself. “I’m Makoto,” he says. “Do you know where the closest hospital is?”

He dips his chin in acknowledgment. “Haruka. And no, I’m not…from around here.”

“Nice to meet you,” Makoto says with an absurd-sounding laugh, like he can’t believe the circumstances he’s found himself in. Haruka can’t say much more for his own.

“You could call an ambulance,” Haruka suggests, glancing down at Sousuke. “Wonder if he has insurance.”

Makoto hesitates and prises a bloodied scarf from Sousuke’s hands. “He…said he didn’t want to go to the hospital. But look at him. He kind of looks like he needs medical treatment right _now._ ”

Haruka almost laughs before he remembers that his ribs are compromised.

He can’t fault Makoto for trying to care—he’s obviously coming from a place of genuine concern—but Haruka’s tempted to tell Makoto why he shouldn’t bother. There’s no delicate way to do that without giving himself away as well.

“It’s just a bit of blood loss,” he says. “Shock probably knocked him out. Maybe he has a good reason for not wanting to go to hospital. If he’s going to die—” Makoto’s face turns ashen, “—you should at least comply with his wishes.”

“You’re right,” Makoto sighs. “I know this is probably asking a lot of you, but could you help me get him in a cab? I can take him to my office—I have a first-aid kit there so I can patch him up and at least give him somewhere comfortable to stay until he wakes up.”

“If he wakes up,” Haruka comments.

Makoto frowns at him. “That’s not nice.”

Somehow it feels like the sun just went behind the clouds and left the world in shadows, so Haruka shrugs. “Yeah, I can help.”

“Great,” Makoto says with a noise of relief, and cautiously starts working Sousuke’s arm over his shoulders. “Can you take his other side?”

Haruka eyes Sousuke’s prone form. An unconscious snake is still a snake with fangs and venom, and every time he takes a breath, his ribs pang in response to remind him of that. He can hear Sousuke’s shallow breathing, the pallor of his face a contrast to the darkness of the alleyway. He thinks to check Sousuke’s pulse and the reflexes of his pupils just to ensure he’s out cold but that will implicate him. Makoto is oblivious to his history with Sousuke, and he’d rather keep it that way.

Makoto arches an eyebrow at the holdup. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Haruka shakes his head, reaching for Sousuke’s other arm and hoisting it up. “There’s a cab rank down the street.”

Together they drag Sousuke to a cab and manage to get him inside. The driver only spares them a brief, alarmed look, maybe preparing a speech about his upholstery before Haruka’s quick glare cuts it off and he turns around again, stuttering out a _where to_? Haruka makes up some excuse about needing to go downtown, swept up in the situation now and intent on getting something out of it. Makoto buys it without thinking to question it, too distracted with keeping Sousuke’s head and neck from bending to an unnatural angle where it rests on his shoulder.

Haruka ends up crammed against the far window with Sousuke crushing him on the other side and Makoto’s sizable frame taking up the rest of the space on the other seat. Haruka finds his silence again and looks out the window as the cab pulls away from the curb. The scent of Sousuke’s blood is strong enough to turn his stomach, and eventually Haruka drags his shirtsleeve over his hand and holds it to his nose. He focuses on the glittering lights of downtown Fukuoka, the lanterns strung from shopfronts and the scent of fresh rain from the rolled down window on Makoto’s side.

If he can learn something valuable, Rin might start looking at him again the way he used to before the heroin started whispering to him louder than Haruka ever could.

* * *

Haruka doesn’t realise how much Sousuke weighs until Makoto untangles himself to pat his pockets in search of a key and the sudden burden almost crushes him. He pushes his shoulder to the wall and braces, gritting his teeth while Makoto fumbles with the key in the lock and swings the door open.

It’s a mess of limbs and stumbling to get Sousuke to the couch. Haruka is content to just dump him there, but Makoto insists on making him comfortable. The twinge in Haruka’s ribs is still intense, coming in waves. He doesn’t care about Sousuke or his comfort but for the sake of avoiding any suspicion from Makoto, he grudgingly adjusts Sousuke’s neck so there’s less of a chance he’ll choke on his own saliva.

If Rin doesn’t appreciate the lengths Haruka is going to for sensitive information, he’ll know Rin is too far gone in his addiction. Haruka isn’t expecting a party thrown in his honour when he gets back, but a smile with a hint of the Rin he used to know would suffice for him to sign away the rest of his life in service to the clan. He knows as well as Rin there’s no escaping the life now that he has it, now that it’s marked him permanently in the form of ink and scars well below the surface.

His stomach crawls the longer his eyes stay trained on Sousuke. All he sees is a quick opportunity to cut the head from the snake, ridding himself of a problem that’s been haunting him for a month. He still has to meet Sousuke twice more for the trade to be complete, so when his hand starts to twitch for the knife hidden down the side of his boot, he stuffs it in his pocket.

Makoto has found a first-aid kit and taken out what he needs. He makes his way back to the couch, teeth worrying at his lip. “Where do I start? He has cuts everywhere.”

“Start with the one that’s still bleeding,” Haruka instructs, on autopilot. “Left cheek.”

Makoto dabs a wad of cloth in antiseptic and gingerly cleans the blood from Sousuke’s cheek. “Okay. If they’re all as small as this one, he should be fine.”

“If,” Haruka says flatly. Makoto directs a glare at him, and he looks away. “Who is he, anyway?”

“My client,” Makoto answers.

The swipes of Makoto’s hand become hypnotic after a while. He has attractive hands, Haruka notes. His eyes sweep Makoto’s body—strong forearms exposed by rolled sleeves and collarbones in view from his loosened shirt and tie—to find the rest of him matches. Makoto is far from his type, but then so is everyone whose eyes don’t blaze like a bed of hot coals. Makoto’s smile is smooth at the edges instead of sharp, and his tongue is as mild as lukewarm water when Haruka longs for the heat that scalds and barbed words.

“What do you do?” Haruka asks idly, eyes roving the walls of anatomy posters, the life-sized model skeleton propped in the corner with a snapback, posed to give a thumbs-up. He can almost make a guess. “Doctor?”

“It’s kind of a cliché,” Makoto says wryly. “I didn’t make the grades for med school. I’m a physiotherapist. Sousuke—that’s him—he’s been a client of mine for a while now.”

“A while, huh.”

“About a month. He has some persistent shoulder problems,” Makoto explains, and his hand stops over Sousuke’s cheek, lingering briefly before he resumes cleaning the skin. “Actually, this is the third time I’ve seen him like this… Maybe he runs his own Fight Club?” he suggests with a soft laugh.

 _Close_. Haruka takes a seat at the end of the couch in the small space not occupied by Sousuke’s bulk. “Thought the first rule of Fight Club was…”

“So you do have a sense of humour in there?” Makoto teases, taking his eyes off Sousuke to grin at Haruka. “You seem pretty serious.”

Haruka averts his eyes, folding himself in at the knees.

“I’ve seen movies,” he mumbles.

Makoto shifts, bracing a hand on Sousuke’s thigh. He pauses, glancing down. “Huh, what’s…” His fingers feel around Sousuke’s pocket. He pulls out a cellphone, blinking owlishly. “Should I call someone? His family? Someone must be wondering where he is.”

 _I wouldn’t be_ , Haruka thinks, eyeing the phone. If he can get his hands on it, there’s no telling what kind of intel he’ll have access to—their trade, the weapons they deal in, the areas under their control. He could even verify whether or not the rumours about their alleged ties to human trafficking are true. Rin has been investigating it for months with no success.

He shrugs. “It’s an idea.”

The cloth drops to Sousuke’s chest as Makoto starts scrolling through the phone. His eyebrow furrows after a while, and he closes one app to open another. “There are only two contacts…and one message thread. That can’t be right.”

Haruka bites back a dry, humourless sound. “Strange.”

“Maybe he just compulsively deletes messages,” Makoto suggests before falling silent as he flicks through. “Okay, no. These are dated back as far as—January? And his name is…Kisumi,” he adds, rolling his tongue around the vowels in a way that makes Haruka never want to utter them for the sleazy, foreign way it sounds. “The other contact is ‘boss’. Oh, god, I don’t want to actually read any of this. I’m just going to call this Kisumi.”

When Haruka says nothing, his eyes drifting back to Sousuke, Makoto touches his knee. “You don’t have to stay.”

“Make your call,” Haruka says with a languid shrug. “I’ll keep an eye on him and then take another cab.”

Makoto’s eyes search his. Haruka doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he knows Makoto won’t find it. “You’ve really helped me out already, so thank you.”

Haruka stretches a thin smile. “I had nothing better to do.”

* * *

When Kisumi crashes through the door, wide-eyed and alarmed, Sousuke has been conscious for less than ten minutes. The sound of Kisumi gasping is like the shattering of glass to his ears and only adds to the headache budding at his temple. He sinks down into the couch, drawing the blanket high around himself and biting down a wince at the brush of wool over his wounds. The worst of them are on his neck and face, the areas exposed by his clothes. Kisumi only caught a glimpse, but Sousuke won’t be able to staunch the torrent of questions once they start.

_How? Why? Who did this to you, Sousuke? Aren’t you the big bad wolf? Maybe you’re losing your touch. We need to re-do your whole wardrobe front to back. The Terminator-and-leather routine just isn’t cutting it anymore._

Makoto rises from a crouch and steps out of Kisumi’s way, a crease of concern between his brows.

Sousuke glares at Kisumi when his hand outstretches for the edge of the blanket, and pulls back against Kisumi when he tries to drag it off in his unbridled curiosity.

It’s only by Makoto’s hand on his shoulder that Kisumi stops. He spares Makoto a fleeting, inquisitive look as if he’ll settle the affair of their introduction after he’s inspected Sousuke from top to bottom and made a laundry list of the injuries.

“Holy shit,” Kisumi remarks, hovering too close to Sousuke. “You look like you got hit by a train and dragged for six kilometres. I told you, Sou. It’s the bad karma catching up with you.”

The Kisumi in his mind is a seamless match for the one in reality.

Rolling his eyes, Sousuke makes to shift onto his side but a sharp pain lances through his shoulder to remind him that he’s not healed yet and he freezes. Two weeks is nowhere near enough for a hairline fracture to repair itself, and Makoto—the one with an education and working knowledge of the human body—seemed convinced it was a more serious break. Sousuke is unwilling to take his chances with a hospital, but he’s willing to put some trust in Makoto’s expertise.

“Yeah,” Makoto agrees. “That’s what I thought, too.”

“Karma?” Kisumi says with a self-satisfied grin. “See, what did I tell you? You’ve gotta learn to take what I say on board.”

Makoto’s mouth twitches into an amused smile. “No, the train part.”

“Maybe it was a train,” Sousuke mutters, shooting Makoto a dark glare for daring to agree with Kisumi before burrowing further under the blanket. Nowhere will feel safe until he’s back at his apartment, buried amongst empty beer bottles and takeout boxes where he can lick his wounds for a few days in solitude and try to glue the scattered pieces of his pride back together. “You didn’t have to come.”

“Stop being so noble,” Kisumi scolds. “Let me look at you.”

“Nope,” Sousuke retorts, hiking the blanket up.

He’s comforted by Makoto’s hand still on Kisumi’s shoulder. It doesn’t take much to pique Kisumi’s interest and he stops at nothing to get answers. With a buffer between them, Sousuke can live the lie a bit longer. He’s known Kisumi for half his life but there are some things Sousuke knows better than to trust him with—not only for the risk to his line of work, but for the risk to Kisumi’s personal safety.

Kisumi is the only person he has to worry about with his family safely on the other side of the country in Sapporo, well out of the reach of Mikoshiba or his enemies. Sousuke has been guarding this particular secret for a decade, and keeping Kisumi at a permanent arms-length has probably inadvertently saved his life more than once.

“Come on,” Kisumi insists, pouting. “I came down here at midnight just to see that you were okay!”

Makoto, though mostly quiet, has yet to pay attention to anything other than Sousuke. The intensity in those soft, green eyes could be unnerving—or even dangerous—from someone like Mikoshiba. Sousuke finds he wants to stare back, but Kisumi knows him so well that he’ll be caught the second his eyes deviate.

So instead he relents and tugs the blanket down fractionally, allowing Kisumi a view of the open, bloody scrape on the side of his neck. It puts the swathe of cuts on his cheeks and chin in view as well. Kisumi takes it in, eyes wide with awe.

“And now you’ve seen I’m alive,” Sousuke says dryly, “you can go.”

“Oh, hell no.” As usual, Kisumi feels the need to get close and scrutinise the wounds.

Makoto’s hand drops to allow it and Sousuke gazes at the ceiling past the ruffle of Kisumi’s wet hair, still smelling strongly of strawberry shampoo despite the musky dew of rain.

He’s grateful for the only sounds being Kisumi’s concerned hums and the occasional gasp. The hundred questions Kisumi will have for him can wait until he’s slept off the night’s events.

Makoto is still watching them judiciously. Sousuke’s eyes hold Makoto’s long enough for his pulse to spark to a breakneck pace, the same way it does when he has Haruka in his sights. The moment passes, Makoto’s gaze drops, and the ceiling claims Sousuke’s attention again.

A question of his own flies to the tip of his tongue. “How did you know where to find me?”

“Your friend here,” Kisumi replies, throwing a questioning look at Makoto. “What’s your name again?”

“Makoto.”

“Your friend Makoto here,” Kisumi continues as he angles Sousuke’s chin away from him with a finger, “told me you were here— _damn_ , that’s gonna leave a mark—and in bad shape. So I came.”

“How?” Sousuke presses, knocking Kisumi’s hand away from his face.

Kisumi snorts. “I drove like eighty-five percent of the population?”

“No. How did Makoto know to tell you?”

Makoto’s eyes dart to Sousuke. “I called him from your phone.”

Sousuke pauses, thinks about it for a second. Then he relaxes into the couch. “Makes sense.”

“Sorry,” Makoto says, voice wavering, but the determined line of his mouth holds the clear confidence that he made the right decision. “It wasn’t like I had a lot of options. It was either Kisumi or…your boss.”

There’s nothing incriminating on Sousuke’s phone. He’s smart enough to delete messages after deals take place. Anything that requires detail is discussed in person. Sousuke has heard too many stories of tapped lines to talk business in a call.

His phone is used to arrange meetings, keep in contact with Kisumi, and to receive codenames that a cop would never deduce meaning from unless they’ve evolved significantly since the last time Sousuke was arrested. Four hours and two interrogations by two different cops garnered them nothing except repeated demands for coffee and a couple of names he threw out to make them think they’d caught a trail.

It’s not like they could know the owners of those names are probably still at the bottom of Hakata Bay after an abduction gone awry.

“Kisumi was the better choice,” Sousuke says after a pause.

“Of _course_ I am,” Kisumi laughs. “Mikoshiba would tell you to walk it off and expect you to turn up for work tomorrow.” He squeezes Sousuke’s upper arm, trying to encourage him to sit up. “I guess I’m gonna have to break the news to him that you’ll be taking time off, huh? Corroborate your story and shit. Take photos of this mess if you need to prove it to him. Come on, we should get you home.”

Sousuke could chuckle at Kisumi’s unintended irony. As if his job is one he can hang up along with his boots at the end of the day and forget about for an evening. The only way to leave the yakuza is to die serving it. Defecting has the same effect, and Sousuke can remember the last blubbering words and the red-rimmed eyes of the only three men who tried that. It’s their blood on his hands. Mikoshiba wore none of it beyond giving the order.

“That’s probably not a good idea,” Makoto breaks in. “He passed out and he lost a lot of blood, so he needs to stay where he is.”

Kisumi lets go of Sousuke as if his skin is diseased. “Yeah, you’re probably right… _Doctor_ ,” he teases.

Makoto makes a pained noise. “I’m a physiotherapist!”

“You still probably wear a labcoat and glasses like a smartass,” Kisumi says loftily, turning his focus back to Sousuke, who chuckles. If Kisumi finds he was right on the money about Makoto’s attire, he’ll never leave. There’s not enough alcohol in the Fukuoka prefecture to equip him for a gloating Kisumi. “You gonna be okay, Sou?”

Sousuke glances at Makoto. He forces a rueful grin despite the headache now demanding that his facial muscles stay locked in a frown.

“I’ll sleep it off here, Kis,” he says. “If Makoto doesn’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Makoto confirms. “There’s plenty of room.”

“See?” Sousuke grins. “Bring me pizza tomorrow. Maybe a pack of Coronas. Then you can send all the damn pictures you want.”

“Deal.” Conciliated, Kisumi grins victoriously in response, and with a gentle ruffle of Sousuke’s hair and a last, knowing look at Makoto, he leaves.

Sousuke’s grin fades and he groans near-silently, curling towards the back of the couch. His body feels worn down and stretched past its limits, every muscle and tendon aching or burning or both. His skin is oddly warm despite the blood loss and he still has feeling in all his extremities.

A blast of cold air blows in as the door swings shut. Rain is still pounding the windows, the force of it rattling the frames as Makoto goes to lock up. He doesn’t seem in a rush to face Sousuke, shaking out his umbrella and throwing it over a hook on the back of the door. For five silent minutes, Makoto collects the pieces of bloody cloth scattered around the couch, rearranges the coffee table to bring it closer to Sousuke, and makes a trip to the fridge in his office for a bottle of piss-yellow Gatorade. He uncaps it for Sousuke and sits beside him, far too close for Sousuke to tolerate under normal circumstances but Makoto has seen him at his worst twice before—battered and bruised to a lesser degree, but beaten down all the same.

Makoto tries to help Sousuke sit up by supporting him mid-back. He shakes it off, growling once in half-hearted warning.

“I’m a little cut up,” he mutters. “Not incapacitated.”

“And something in that shoulder is broken,” Makoto reminds him. He keeps his distance but doesn’t back off entirely to Sousuke’s annoyance. “So if you aren’t careful, you _will_ be incapacitated. Maybe permanently. I guess Kisumi would be taking care of you in that case.”

Makoto’s fingers graze the not-injured shoulder and travel up to the nape of his neck to rest there. Sousuke flinches, and not because he anticipated pain.

It’s because he knows proximity breeds intimacy. Intimacy breeds a danger he can’t inflict on anyone else. It’s selfish and contemptible enough that he keeps Kisumi around to assuage a fear of being isolated from the world outside the clan, of only looking at it through the tinted windows of Mikoshiba’s car.

He snatches the Gatorade from Makoto to take a few long swigs, suppressing the shiver that wants to take over his skin. “That’s a future me problem.”

Makoto watches him out the corner of his eye guardedly, and his hand drops back to his lap.

“I’m sensing a pattern with you,” he says, aiming for tactful and insightful but landing somewhere between curiosity to rival Kisumi and the Atlantic Ocean. “You get hurt but you don’t really take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” He offers a teasing smile that Sousuke ignores in favour of clamping the nozzle between his teeth. “Or do you just really like coming here to see me?”

“You’re good at what you do.” Sousuke twists the cap back on the bottle and carefully arranges himself against the couch. “Don’t read too far into it.”

Makoto rises, bites at his lip in thought, and disappears into his office again. Taking advantage of Makoto’s absence, Sousuke collapses into himself, façade cracking down the middle. It jostles his shoulder and he winces at the white-hot pain that affirms Makoto’s words. The throb of his facial wounds and the tender bruise forming on his thigh don’t distract him from the issue of his shoulder. In the two weeks since he last saw Makoto, he’s been able to press down thoughts of it and push through the lingering discomfort. Being surrounded by clinical white-washed walls and the dizzying scent of bleach is drawing it back to the surface.

He closes his eyes and sees Haruka by the dock that night. A light sea breeze tousles his bangs into those depthless eyes. Then Sousuke hears Mikoshiba’s nauseating voice insisting how _important_ client satisfaction is, as if news of Matsuoka’s addiction hasn’t come into his knowledge. There’s a cruel irony in what the clan specialises in and the beast beating down Matsuoka’s door loud enough for him to send his right-hand man across the country for just enough to get him through a fortnight.

Sousuke hopes Haruka is fucking _satisfied_ with the services provided.

A minute later, Makoto is back, dragging a futon and an oversized duvet. He lines the futon parallel to the couch and throws the duvet down onto it, and there’s more quiet while Makoto takes off his shoes and loosens his belt. He pulls at the buttons on his shirt and shrugs it off as he glances up at Sousuke to find him staring. “I’m going to stay tonight, too.”

His mouth tightens when he notices how form-fitting Makoto’s black undershirt is. “Look, thanks for letting me crash. But I don’t need a goddamn babysitter. Did you see Kisumi before? I’m gonna be dealing with that all week.”

“You don’t get a vote,” Makoto says. “I feel personally responsible for you, kind of like a pet dog.”

Sousuke glowers. “You comparing me to an animal?”

“I found you like one.”

Sousuke rifles for a retort and comes up empty. Makoto crashes to the futon and settles on his side to face Sousuke, wrapping an arm around a cushion and propping it under his head.

“You and me,” Sousuke mumbles. “We have unfinished business and we’re taking care of it as soon as I’m not about to pass out again from blood loss.”

“It’s not the blood loss,” Makoto replies. The smile at his lips shouldn’t be arousing but Sousuke feels more than just his body stiffening. “It’s the sleeping tablet.”

His head is too heavy to hold up anymore so it falls to the pillow. He attempts to lift an eyebrow but even that feels like energy he doesn’t have after the latest scuffle with Haruka and this new information that Makoto has sleeping tablets lying around in case he takes in a recalcitrant yakuza for the night.

“When the fuck did you…”

“The seal on the Gatorade was broken. I guess you didn’t think twice about that, either. Like I said,” Makoto’s smile turns mischievous, “I’m seeing a pattern.”

* * *

Gou and Rin are curled up on the bed together with a deck of cards in the midst of a game when Haruka slips into the hotel room, sleep-deprived and embittered. The way Rin’s face lights up when he sees Haruka isn’t for him. It’s for the heroin tucked into his back pocket.

Rin’s grin is energetic, belying the slow disintegration of both body and mind. He throws down his cards, beckons with a finger, and waits for Haruka to approach the bed. He gets up on his knees and winds his arms around Haruka’s neck, breath welcoming and warm on his cold skin.

“It’s about time,” Rin declares.

Gou excuses herself to the bathroom with a giggle at Rin’s losing hand, and she presses up on her toes to kiss Haruka’s cheek on the way. “Welcome back, Haru.”

Haruka lets himself relax into Rin’s hold when the sound of running water reaches his ears. It takes effort for him to meet Rin’s gaze as it bores into him with the intensity of the sun at close range, and it burns just as much when he sees softness there mixed with an indescribable hunger that goes beyond the physical.

Haruka doesn’t know what it feels like. He never wants to know what it is that Rin finds in a drug that he can’t in a person, or the reason that drives Rin to it. Those things don’t concern him.

Rin does.

Haruka lets himself be drawn down to the bed next to Rin. His eyes flit to Rin’s lips. “I’ve got it.”

“Thank fuck,” Rin breathes, and the undercurrent of relief in his tone twists something in Haruka’s gut. “Don’t get so fucking sidetracked next time, alright? Holding down the fort on my own is so _boring_.”

“It won’t happen again,” Haruka agrees in a murmur.

“Good.” Rin tips his chin up with two fingers and leans across to kiss him softly, deceptively sweetly, like the heroin is laced in Haruka’s teeth and on his tongue. He exhales a half-sigh, half-moan into Rin’s mouth, rewarded by the brush of Rin’s tongue over his bottom lip.

“I have something else.”

Mildly interested, Rin eases back. In the rotating, deep orange light from the lava lamp, the track marks just above and below his elbow could pass for scars. “What kind of something?”

Haruka threads his fingers through Rin’s and guides it to the front of his jeans where Sousuke’s phone is hidden in a pocket, so close to where he aches for touch. “Make me come before Gou finishes up and I’ll tell you.”

Rin’s pupils are blown wide and unfocused. But when he grins and throws a leg over Haruka’s lap, there’s a hint of challenge that almost makes him recognisable.


	3. a warm place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Makoto can’t help but stare at the storm brewing in Sousuke’s eyes. Up close it’s like standing in the midst of a hurricane waiting to fall victim to its destructive power. Makoto wants to touch Sousuke’s jaw, sift his fingers through Sousuke’s dishevelled hair, and soothe it all away. He wants to be the eye of the hurricane, not the city standing in the way of its natural course. 
> 
> Instead he meets Sousuke with a level gaze, and stands his ground. 
> 
> “Let me tell you something that will make your life bearable.”
> 
> Makoto doesn’t react. “Then say it.”
> 
> “We’re all running from something at the end of the day,” Sousuke says, voice low. “You, me. Everyone.” 
> 
> “Not me,” Makoto counters. “We aren’t alike.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy bday to bae. <3 pls heed the updated tags, and sorry i move slower than a snail. :x
> 
>  
> 
> [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4nXnuV7j6Y)

All the way through the meeting, Haruka’s mind wanders.

Their hotel room is a mess of faces. Some he doesn’t know, and others he wishes he were less familiar with. A few of them are smoking, imported cigars wedged between fingers laden with heavy rings. The open window does nothing to minimize the oppressive stench.

None of Rin’s subordinates speak above a mumble or mutter, and not because they’re afraid of being overheard. Rin’s presence commands absolute deference, a fact many men have learned the hard way. Haruka has acted as Rin’s enforcer enough to know that he doesn’t suffer fools. Rin has had his share of doubters over the years, and Haruka has heard rumours ranging from Rin’s age to his proclivities to his methods, but never concerning his addiction. His word is law in the underground, and every naysayer has been snuffed out like a candle in the dark.

Rin is authoritative, street-hardened. The king of the underground where no light reaches.

Haruka considers himself fortunate to be in Rin’s inner circle: they’re untouchable. Safe. Everyone else is expendable, regardless of talents or sworn fealties. Rin doesn’t care about those. He is every bit as ruthless as the heroin is destructive, and those traits in Rin are now so closely intertwined that Haruka can’t separate one from the other.

He breathes in the smoke, and it scorches the lining of his throat the entire way down. The men are still talking amongst themselves, a voice escalating in dissention every now and again until Rin cuts through the middle of it with an order of _focus_.

Gou left hours ago to carry out some tedious and unnecessary errand, undoubtedly designed to keep her away from the part of Rin’s life that he makes no effort to hide. With some bitterness, Haruka wonders if maybe there was a time when Rin held his best interests at heart, too. That time has long since passed, since he’s just as likely to be gunned down on the street now as he is to die a slow and painful death due to the amount of second-hand smoking he’s been exposed to since Rin lodged a foothold in his heart and made himself at home there, thereby damning Haruka to this life and all that comes with it.

Besides Rin, Nagisa is the only one Haruka wants to see. He sits perched on the dresser, one arm resting on Rin’s shoulder while he stands, addressing the rest of the room now that some minor contention about who has the rights to deal in downtown Kobe has been settled.

Haruka drowns it out. He gazes at a point beyond the balcony. He wants to be out there instead of in here, listening to matters that don’t involve him and that certainly don’t interest him. He’ll be briefed again later, told his role in it all like he’s a child waiting on strict commands for fetching milk from the store, and he’ll do whatever is asked of him. That’s how it works.

As Rin starts detailing the procedure of each location’s gun drop, Nagisa catches Haruka’s eye, blinking at him curiously. An eyebrow lifts slightly in question. Haruka doesn’t feel like answering when Nagisa mouths, _are you okay?_

Haruka shakes his head almost imperceptibly and stubbornly averts his eyes. _Don’t ask._

Nagisa frowns. Haruka can imagine the pout in his voice if they could engage in a conversation right now, feel the hand tugging at his sleeve. _You know you can trust me, Haru-chan._

 _It’s not a matter of trust_ , Haruka would tell him. _It’s more than this. It’s our lives. His life. Yours, mine. The worth of it if he dies. What then?_

Nagisa has an answer for everything, but this is one thing Haruka expects would leave him speechless.

And Nagisa, hearing none of Haruka’s thoughts, gives him a look that says _I’m not done with you_ , and shifts his attention back to the meeting. Haruka doesn’t blame him for it; Nagisa coordinates the times of each drop over a span of days and keeps in touch with the street dealers, keeping Rin’s operation running smoothly as only he can. He has a purpose in the plan.

Rin doesn’t see the exchange. There isn’t much he does notice as his eyes dart around the room, appraising the newer faces and reassuring himself that the familiar ones won’t plant a knife between his shoulders the second he turns his back on them. Loyalty is a fickle trade, hard-won but easily bought, and Rin has long since lost the charisma he once had, capable of binding anyone and everyone to him except those who remain by choice.

Haruka has always thought of himself as caught in life’s chokehold, slowly losing oxygen to the weight of what he has done, and what he will do in Rin’s name. He would still be by Rin’s side in the absence of it, tied to him like the sea is tied to the sky, and the stars to the moon.

* * *

They’re due to leave the hotel in another day or two. Haruka loses track of where they’re meant to be; Gou is the one with the plans. Rin shields her from frontline work, but Haruka knows there’s no illusions about who the brains of the operation is. Like him, Gou’s loyalty to her brother is absolute. Haruka can only say that his own, while won by respect in the first place, is tempered by the affection he has for Rin, the years of being inseparable.

A cool wind shifts the curtains, wafting out the last of the smoke. The room is temperate, but Rin is kneeling on the bed, shivering and perspiring along the slope of his neck and shoulders. His tank top clings to his back, and Haruka sits beside him to run his hands over the parts that need warming. Rin fumbles with a spoon, preloaded with a grain of heroin, and nods for the glass of water on the bedside table. Haruka passes it to him wordlessly.

“Thanks,” Rin mutters, glancing at him. The look is faraway, vacuous. “Just—just give me a minute.”

“I’m not leaving,” Haruka says, because it’s true. He’s had better offers from better men, but he’s still here.

And for the moment, so is Rin.

“It wore off so fast,” Rin says, grimacing. “I wasn’t expecting it to…”

“But it did,” Haruka states, firm but soft. “And nobody noticed.”

He situates himself behind Rin, soothing the overwrought muscles of Rin’s lower back, and that’s where he focuses his gaze. He never watches, and Rin never asks him to.

A syringe in trembling hands could spell trouble for anyone less determined to shoot up. As far as Haruka knows, Rin could do it in his sleep. And he does it with mindless precision now, injecting water to the spoon and scraping around in a jean pocket for his lighter. The powder dissolves into the murky liquid that Haruka has come to fear so deeply. It reminds him of the fragmentation of Rin, the agonisingly slow descent to a place Haruka knows he can’t pull Rin out of again. He’s tried before. There are some scars, he knows through experience, that time cannot heal, and Rin’s have been blistered over, sealed tight with his weapon of choice.

The brew in the spoon swizzles above the lighter’s heat. Rin’s purr of satisfaction almost makes Haruka nauseous.

“Be careful,” he whispers, pressing his forehead between Rin’s shoulder blades. “Rin…”

“I’m always careful.” Rin tears a package open with his teeth and swipes the alcohol swab along the inner corner of his elbow, striking a precarious balance with the heroin now liquefied. The cotton ball is next, filtering out the debris to make it as safe as heroin can possibly be given its life-destroying properties. Then the needle. It’s part of the routine that even Haruka knows, in all his inexperience with drugs. He bites down a mouthful of bile rising in his throat, kneading a knot in Rin’s left shoulder to distance himself from the situation. “I know what I’m doing.”

 _Do you_? Haruka asks himself. A hundred of Rin’s excuses, a hundred of Rin's lies come to mind. _Do you, Rin?_

A soft hiss from Rin as the needle pierces his skin. If Rin thinks it gives him life, Haruka thinks it takes life away.

Haruka has nothing left but a slow exhale. In a moment, Rin’s body will stop quivering, and then Rin will again bear the traces of the person Haruka remembers. Bits and pieces of a life long lost to them both, left on the busy streets of Tokyo.

Rin’s relief is palpable. He rests against Haruka for a few blissful minutes, and Haruka savours it. When he tilts his head sideways to gaze at Haruka, the light has returned to his eyes.

“Are you done?” Haruka asks tersely.

“It’ll hold me over.”

_Until when?_

Haruka sounds tired to his own ears. “Rin.”

Rin takes care to replace the items in the drawer. They won’t get cleaned, and Haruka will end up throwing them away. He’s spent enough time in the company of addicts to know that an unsterilised needle can hold graver fates than years of opiate use. Last Haruka checked, spare livers were a hard find on the black market, and Rin doesn’t have a hope in the hospital system. Not with the weight his name carries.

“Stay,” Rin murmurs, shifting to face him. “Right here. With me.”

It’s perturbing to see him go from half-dead to rejuvenated in a matter of minutes.

“I said I wasn’t going to…” A muscle in Haruka’s jaw tenses as Rin traces a fingertip from the midpoint of his throat to his navel, eyes zeroed in on his own with purpose that he wasn’t capable of five minutes ago. Then it’s like lightning crackling in Haruka’s ears as Rin launches himself at Haruka; his hands pull and tug at his clothes as Haruka’s mouth crushes against Rin’s in a kiss that sears him down to his bones. He wrenches Rin’s jeans open while Rin takes care of their shirts and rakes his nails across Haruka’s skin, making soft, hungry noises that would have Haruka hard if he weren’t aching already.

Rin is never patient enough for drawn out foreplay, the same way he isn’t patient enough to stand in line for groceries or to wait longer than a few hours for a fix when he runs out of heroin. Haruka doesn’t care about anything except silencing Rin with a rough kiss, tongue running along the sharp peaks of Rin’s teeth.

The lube is never further away than his drug equipment, and Rin doesn’t wait for Haruka to take initiative. He grins impishly at Haruka, slicks his hand and works himself open with delving fingers and low moans. All the while Haruka kneels over Rin’s chest after being dragged there forcibly, supporting himself with thighs splayed wide. His cock is halfway down Rin’s throat by the time he forgets how to breathe, and Rin’s free hand is on his ass, squeezing so firmly his nails cut into the flesh. Haruka’s breath is run ragged, his moans a raspy noise in his throat.

“Rin,” Haruka hisses, bracing his hands on the pillow. He snaps his hips back when the tip of his cock brushing the back of Rin’s throat almost proves to be too much.

Playfully, Rin licks his lips, eyes half-lidded. His fingers slow to a crawl, and he rocks his hips to compensate for it, purring softly. “Too good for you, baby?”

Haruka’s lips form a small smirk. “You wish.”

He moves down the length of Rin’s body, tongue grazing the dip between his abdominals. Under him, Rin’s body is scorching hot, and every inch of it is a map Haruka wants to learn for himself with just his mouth. Maybe, if Rin ever lets him do more than basic preparation.

He wraps a hand around Rin’s wrist and forces it away, eliciting a whine of protest.

“Please,” Rin mumbles. “Haru, I need—”

A vague plea if Haruka has ever heard one. “Tell me.”

The real answer is one that exists outside this space between them. It is sacred, and the sole place Rin won’t bring his demons along. But for Haruka, being allowed the time to pretend that it’s just them in the world again is enough. He knows not to ask for more.

Instead of answering, Rin grasps Haruka’s hands in his own and draws them up to his neck, where his pulse hammers away under his skin. Haruka recognises the fragility of life, but especially so Rin’s, hanging in the balance between his profession and his addiction.

He doesn’t afford Rin the intimacy he will crave before they’re done, avoiding his lips in favour of staring down at him intently. He firms his hands around Rin’s neck, and Rin’s fall away; one curls around Haruka’s cock, urging his hips forward, and it guides him inside. The heat is dizzying and the pressure of it evokes a moan from Rin that ends up trapped in his throat, only bubbling out when Haruka loosens his grip incrementally.

Rin gazes back at Haruka with the same intensity, the same need. His thighs bracket Haruka’s sides, and he uses the grip to arch his back up when Haruka draws back to thrust in again, deep and slow.

This way, they both get what they want; Rin hands over his control, and Haruka gains the leverage to have it. It’s a dangerous game to engage in with a man whose moods change like the wind, but Haruka thinks there are worse ways to die.

Only like this, stripped of titles and social roles and expectations, can they find equal footing to stand on.

Haruka doesn’t fear Rin. He fears _for_ Rin. And Gou, and Nagisa, and what will become of them all when Rin’s empire comes crashing down. They will all be there for Rin when the smoke fades and the rubble is cleared, and all Haruka wants to know is when that day will be.

Rin tries to cry out, clawing at his chest, and Haruka’s hands tighten in response. In his mind’s eye he can see how the colour would drain from Rin’s face, the strength from his limbs, if he were starved of breath long enough. He’s done it to others in Rin’s name, and he knows how fucking easy it is to kill by strangulation, let alone a man with one foot already in the grave.

 _More_ , Rin’s eyes beg of him. _It isn’t enough. I can still feel it. More, Haru._

And so Haruka, as always, folds.

* * *

If Makoto is being honest with himself, he expected it to play out like this.

Instead of greeting the world bright-eyed and well-rested as Makoto hoped, Sousuke awakens like an animal that has been caged in the city zoo too long. If he were a dog, he’d be rabid.

Makoto has been up for two hours, sterilising the treatment room and running his tools and sheets through the autoclave. He changed his clothes and brewed coffee in the hopes it might rouse Sousuke and placate him, or at the very least lessen the severity of his reaction.

For anyone else, ten hours of sleep might be sufficient to flip their mood. And maybe for anyone else, the help Makoto provided might not have resulted in such brooding.

But not for Sousuke.

He throws Makoto a decimating stare that has Makoto raising his brows, and starts gathering up the clothes Makoto pulled off him while he was passed out yesterday. His sweatshirt is first, still stained with blood on the collar, and then the red Air Jordans, soaked through from the rain and reeking of dampness. Sousuke looks a mess and Makoto supposes he must feel it, too. Landing himself in this condition three times now is so far from a coincidence that even Makoto, who can admit to being occasionally gullible, knows something is amiss. The only question that remains is what; Makoto cares less about the why.

Sousuke ties his laces like he’s trying to garrotte someone, a foot propped on a knee. The lacerations on his face are crusted over with dried blood, and the deeper gash on his neck looks like it might reopen again if knocked or brushed by fabric. Every time Sousuke shifts, he’s suppressing a wince. As he stands, he lifts a hand as if to embrace his shoulder, and then his eyes dart to Makoto, and it drops back to his side and finds a home in his pocket.

Makoto wonders if he should have taken Sousuke to the hospital and had him x-rayed while he was guaranteed to be unconscious, then decides that would just have soured Sousuke’s mood further. Makoto is painfully aware that he can’t lie to save his life, through omission or otherwise.

Even telling white lies to his siblings is a stretch. One Christmas, under the pressure of the twin’s ecstatic gazes and their relentless interrogating about the how and why of Santa Claus’ gift delivery system and the efficiency of reindeer transport, he cracked.

When Sousuke is about to leave, Makoto cracks yet again, but the words wither in his throat. He doesn’t want another back turned on him; he doesn’t want to be another footnote in Sousuke’s life that amounts to nothing. Maybe Sousuke is pissed because of the sleeping tablet. Maybe it was the unwelcome help. Maybe it was that Makoto involved Kisumi when he was at a loss for what to do.

Maybe it’s just that Sousuke is a stranger and they owe each other nothing. Sousuke could be angry at an infinite amount of things, and the passive-aggression is starting to grate on Makoto’s nerves.

He draws in a breath and gathers himself.

“You shouldn’t leave like this,” Makoto dares, from behind the relative safety of the reception desk. Looking over the files of his appointments booked for later today only acted as a distraction for so long before Sousuke’s stomping became irritating. That and the silent treatment. “We should talk about it.”

“No,” Sousuke says with such vehemence that Makoto almost flinches. “We’ve done enough talking.”

“If it’s about the sleeping tablet, I’m sorry?”

Absurdly, Sousuke folds up the blanket he slept with. “When you phrase it like a question it’s real fucking hard to believe you, Makoto.”

“It’s not that, is it?” Makoto asks, all hesitation lost. “Sousuke, you’re—”

“It is so crucial to your future that you don’t finish that sentence.”

Makoto’s temper flares.

He spent his Saturday night dragging a half-dead man who will barely meet his eyes. He tended to Sousuke’s wounds, gave him somewhere to sleep it off away from the prying eyes of his friend, and Makoto asked no questions. Apart from trying to help, he isn’t sure what he’s guilty of. Giving a shit has, historically, been a problem for him in the past, but now it seems to be that he gives too many shits about Sousuke.

The recollection of the previous night makes his jaw tense. Maybe he overstepped his bounds by touching Sousuke in a way reserved for familiar people—lovers and family. He’s neither to Sousuke, and most vexing part is that he doesn’t know what he wants to be to Sousuke. It goes beyond the realm of the professional-client relationship, of that much Makoto is certain. Everything else is as much of a puzzle to him as Sousuke himself.

Sousuke’s threats don’t deter Makoto. “You’re lucky that I found you.”

“Am I?” Sousuke snorts. “I’d just as soon be left for dead.”

Makoto feels his ears getting hot, and rises from the desk. “Do you mean it? Was me helping you that much of a hindrance? I’ve been trying to help you since I met you.”

His sense of self-preservation should have kicked in by now to stop him from poking the bear in his office with a stick, but Makoto suddenly doesn’t care.

The sneer on Sousuke’s lips detracts from his otherwise handsome features. “What were you doing there anyway, Tachibana?”

Back to last names. Makoto suppresses a scathing remark, drawing on his training in dealing with unruly and dissatisfied clients.

“I was doing a home visit for a client,” he says. “I was eating dinner, and I saw you running down the street like your life depended on it.” He pauses. “Like you were running from something.”

At that, Sousuke goes very still. He’s three feet from the door, and Makoto hopes the bait is effective in keeping Sousuke put for a bit longer.

Last night, Sousuke was right: they do have unfinished business.

He crosses the room to stand in front of Makoto’s desk, leaning forward to rest his hands on it. Makoto can’t help but stare at the storm brewing in Sousuke’s eyes. Up close it’s like standing in the midst of a hurricane waiting to fall victim to its destructive power. Makoto wants to touch Sousuke’s jaw, sift his fingers through Sousuke’s dishevelled hair, and soothe it all away. He wants to be the eye of the hurricane, not the city standing in the way of its natural course.

Instead he meets Sousuke with a level gaze, and stands his ground.

“Let me tell you something that will make your life bearable.”

Makoto doesn’t react. “Then say it.”

“We’re all running from something at the end of the day,” Sousuke says, voice low. “You, me. Everyone.”

“Not me,” Makoto counters. “We aren’t alike.”

Sousuke surveys him with new interest, like he’s just seeing Makoto for the first time.

And maybe Makoto is only now seeing Sousuke for the first time too—for what he is, instead of who he might be.

Sousuke shifts away, pressing his fingers through a pocket, and hesitates. “Where’s my phone?”

The dissonance between one topic and the next makes Makoto’s head spin.

“Wasn’t it with your clothes?”

“No,” Sousuke says, and begins a rather frantic search for it. Under couch pillows, behind the fish tank, in Makoto’s drawers. His papers and various stationary end up out of order, strewn across the desk. “What the hell did you do with it?”

“Nothing. I used it to call Kisumi, and then loaned it to Haruka to call a cab.”

Sousuke’s body goes rigid like someone just tossed a handful of ice cubes down the back of his jeans. “What did you say?”

“I called Kisu—”

“Not that,” Sousuke says slowly, a vein throbbing in his neck. “The other bit.”

Makoto arches a brow. “I loaned it to…Haruka?”

For a moment, there is only silence.

“ _Nanase_.” Sousuke’s hand lashes out to fist Makoto’s shirt. In a different context, Makoto might enjoy this, but the pull is uncomfortably tight on his neck when Sousuke twists. He prises Sousuke’s hand off, glowering. “Start from the beginning.”

“There is no _beginning_ ,” Makoto says, straightening out his shirt. “He just happened to be close by after you blacked out, and he was kind enough to help me get you in a cab. He offered to come back here with me, and that’s the only reason I managed to get you inside. He wasn’t fazed by the blood.”

Sousuke’s intensity is unnerving, his eyes narrowed and mouth set in a deep scowl. “And you let him use my fucking phone?”

“It only seemed right, seeing as he’s half the reason you aren’t passed out in a gutter somewhere.”

“You let Nanase steal my phone.” Sousuke’s tone is verging between hysteria and disbelief. “That son of a bitch. You might as well have sent me home in a body bag, Makoto.”

Silence finds them again as Makoto absorbs this and it dawns on Sousuke what he just said.

“I have to go,” he says tersely. Before he can, it’s Makoto’s turn to bury a hand in Sousuke’s shirt. He yanks with excessive force, bringing Sousuke eye-to-eye with him. They’re both breathing a bit heavier at this point for different reasons, and Makoto can feel perspiration gathering between his shoulder blades, dripping down to the small of his back. Sousuke is tensed against him. Makoto tries not to waver as much as his grip does.

He wants to be as pissed with Sousuke as Sousuke is with him. But all he can find within himself to say is, “Tell me what’s going on so I can help you.”

Sousuke catches him off guard with a low, rueful chuckle. “You can’t help me, Makoto.”

First name basis again. Makoto wants to shake Sousuke for the emotional whiplash, but settles for staring him down intently. “Try me.”

Briefly, Sousuke’s carefully constructed pretense seems to split down the middle. There’s fleeting emotion that Makoto has no time to identify, but it bolsters him.

The beginnings of an answer form on Sousuke’s tongue. Rather than do the straightforward thing, he reaches out and cradles Makoto’s face in his hands, eases him close so their lips touch. Makoto has so many questions and a few protests, but Sousuke doesn’t give him the chance, capturing him in a hard, searching kiss that drowns out everything else.

When they part, Makoto is the one at a loss for words. His hand loosens in Sousuke’s shirt.

“You know the old adage, curiosity killed the cat?” Sousuke breathes against him.

“Um, not really,” Makoto admits. “English wasn’t my best subject.”

Sousuke breathes a sigh through his nose, tickling Makoto’s upper lip. “You ever met a cat?”

Makoto considers for a moment. “I have a clowder of them at my back doorstep every morning, so…yes.”

“A fucking what?”

“A clowder?” Makoto repeats. “You know, like a group of them? A herd of elephants? A gaggle of geese? Except it’s a clowder of cats.”

“So you’ve met a cat,” Sousuke continues, ignoring Makoto’s attempt to educate him. “And that means you know what they’re like. They’re nosy. They knock things off tables. They get into everything.”

“I don’t get what you’re saying.”

“Cats are curious,” Sousuke says. “Curiosity will kill you eventually. So stop it.”

“Wait, so I’m the cat?”

“You are absolutely the fucking cat.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“More or less, yeah.”

Makoto shoves Sousuke away at that. He’s relieved to see a small smirk playing at Sousuke’s lips, even if his own are still burning from that kiss. “So you’re telling me to stay out of it.”

“Like I said from the start,” Sousuke says, “all I need is your professional opinion.”

Before the door closes behind Sousuke on his way out, Makoto calls, “And the rest?”

“Forget the rest.”

* * *

“Greasiest pizza in Fukuoka, check,” Kisumi announces, sliding the box on the table, “and a six pack, as you ordered. They were out of Coronas so you’ll have to settle for Asahi Black, though.”

“Don’t care what it is,” Sousuke grunts. “Just give me the alcohol.”

Kisumi is still inquisitive about the extent of his wounds, and his attempts to get Sousuke’s shirt off for inspection have ranged from subtle suggestions of a sponge bath to blatant requests that he get naked for no apparent reason. Kisumi rips the carton apart and tosses Sousuke a beer, and plops on the couch with him.

“You did promise me pictures,” Kisumi points out. “And that I could send them to Mikoshiba. As many as I want, if I recall correctly.”

Sousuke bares his teeth. “Not until I’m wasted. That’s the only guarantee that I won’t try to kill you for it. I’ve had the week from hell, I don’t need it made worse by you sending Mikoshiba pictures of my dick by accident.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t be an accident.”

Sousuke doesn’t have the energy to rebuke Kisumi when his grease-stained hand leaves a mark on the couch. He finds solace the pizza, wolfing half of the box before Kisumi is finished with one slice.

“Hungry, huh?” Kisumi remarks. “You seem more stressed than you were last night, Sou.”

“Does it show?” Sousuke asks dryly. “Should have come home with you.”

“Mmm, I told you so… Next time listen to me and you won’t have any regrets.”

“Kis, I regret knowing you.”

Kisumi makes an indignant noise and pouts, thumping him on the arm. “If you had just let me know where you were in the first place, I could have—”

“No,” Sousuke interjects. “I was working. You know what that means.”

“Yeah, it means you don’t tell me a single thing,” Kisumi frowns, picking at a rope of cheese. “Don’t you trust me?”

He’s never known Kisumi to be anything but as shallow as a puddle with the same capacity for feelings, and yet, that was a genuine question. Probably one borne of the inferiority complex that only rears its head when Kisumi thinks he’s been replaced or one-upped by someone else in Sousuke’s life. Kisumi is all that he has, and Sousuke loathes having to remind him.

“I tell you what I can, Kis. You know my job is more than a nine-to-five. I’m not allowed to—”

“I know,” Kisumi says with a heavy sigh. “It’s in your contract.”

The only contract Sousuke is bound to is written in blood. Mikoshiba has more control over his life than he does. Even with Sousuke’s grand plans to supplant him, for the moment he defers to Mikoshiba, and he does what he has to in order to survive, and to keep his family and Kisumi out of the firing line. The clan is full of lawless men capable of carrying out their orders without qualms; it’s never worth risking the lives of people he cares about to defy Mikoshiba. He has nothing to gain and everything to lose.

If not for the stranglehold Mikoshiba has on him, Sousuke would have killed Haruka on the spot, consequences be damned.

The very tangible reminder of his obedience is looking at him in concern, a brow quirked. “Sou?”

He summons a smirk and leans across for Kisumi’s phone. “Let’s get it over with.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://sierrasuke.tumblr.com/) ◇ [twitter](https://twitter.com/sierrasuke)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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